By Ting Chen, American School in Taichung
Lead by Soukaina Rachidi-Alaowi, Charles Tsai, Natasha Turk, and Cecile Gros, the Youth Assembly, with its thirty-five delegates, continues to sparkle in a corner of THIMUN-Singapore.
Charles Tsai, currently a senior at the International School of Bejing, started MUN in his freshman year. He began as a delegate in the Human Rights forum in BEIMUN. He made his first appearance in THIMUN-Singapore as an ECOSOC delegate and the same year he took on a chairing position in BEIMUN’s Youth Assembly. When he first joined the YA, his first impression, like many other people, was that the committee seemed “very relaxed and informal.” However, as he began to engage in the discussions, he noticed the delegates’ enthusiasm. “The biggest difference is that, for example, when I was in the HRC I had the impression that MUN was all about writing resolutions and trying to convince other people to follow your idea no matter which country you represented,” Tsai explained, “whereas in YA we as teenages can take actually take on specific leadership roles and work for a better future.”
Tsai is very satisfied with this year’s conference. The delegates surprised him with their diligence because there was not much time for them to prepare. “YA was first cancelled until Mr. Boyle-Woods restarted it two or three months ago and we had to get eveyone together in a very short amount of time.” Tsai was deeply impressed with the delegates’ detailed research and their innovative ideas. He recommended all future participants to use YA as an opportunity to expend their vision. “Delegates should actually do the things they have proposed and not just just write them out on paper,” noted Tsai. As for his future advice for potential YA presidents, Tsai encouraged them “to try to keep [themselves] on task and to find a compromise between different ideas.”
Natasha Turk of the American School of Doha in Qatar, who has participated in YA for the last two years, agrees with Tsai: “In YA I like the fact that we wrote the action paper together. It was one of the things that you actually do. I feel that the other MUN is just sitting there and you don’t really get to do anything.”
Her fellow YA coordinator, Soukaina Rachidi-Alaowi (also from the American Scool of Doha), added, “You can actually make a substantial difference because these action plans we make, they are going back to the schools, and they are being implemented. Change doesn’t have to always filter down, sometimes they can filter up. YA starts to change from down below and it goes up. So by changing the community, you can change the region, and even globally.” Both officers believed that the delegates were all really motivated. “What’s so difficult about MUN is when you try to be another country, you have to take yourself out of your own context and put it into the mind of someone completely different,” concluded Rachidi. “This is a committee that they can make their own. This is their footprint on MUN.”
President of the third forum, Cecile Gros from the Overseas Family School, was also chairing for the first time at YA. Gros began her first conference in her French school as a delegate. This is her third THIMUN-Singapore conference and she had been to BEIMUN twice. She hopes to go to The Hague next year. “I have already learned a lot from my experiences,” said Gros. “I am more comfortable speaking with other people now. I used to be really freaked out because I was worried that I would make a mistake. Then I realized that I was not the only one – everybody was freaked out.” She admits that Chairs need a lot of patience since most delegates here are first-timers, so they had to be led step by step.
Under the leadership of these discerning Presidents, the Youth Assembly grows sturdily. As Rachidi said, these potential delegates are not representing other people, but themselves. These are the real voices that needed to be heard throughout the world.
Lead by Soukaina Rachidi-Alaowi, Charles Tsai, Natasha Turk, and Cecile Gros, the Youth Assembly, with its thirty-five delegates, continues to sparkle in a corner of THIMUN-Singapore.
Charles Tsai, currently a senior at the International School of Bejing, started MUN in his freshman year. He began as a delegate in the Human Rights forum in BEIMUN. He made his first appearance in THIMUN-Singapore as an ECOSOC delegate and the same year he took on a chairing position in BEIMUN’s Youth Assembly. When he first joined the YA, his first impression, like many other people, was that the committee seemed “very relaxed and informal.” However, as he began to engage in the discussions, he noticed the delegates’ enthusiasm. “The biggest difference is that, for example, when I was in the HRC I had the impression that MUN was all about writing resolutions and trying to convince other people to follow your idea no matter which country you represented,” Tsai explained, “whereas in YA we as teenages can take actually take on specific leadership roles and work for a better future.”
Tsai is very satisfied with this year’s conference. The delegates surprised him with their diligence because there was not much time for them to prepare. “YA was first cancelled until Mr. Boyle-Woods restarted it two or three months ago and we had to get eveyone together in a very short amount of time.” Tsai was deeply impressed with the delegates’ detailed research and their innovative ideas. He recommended all future participants to use YA as an opportunity to expend their vision. “Delegates should actually do the things they have proposed and not just just write them out on paper,” noted Tsai. As for his future advice for potential YA presidents, Tsai encouraged them “to try to keep [themselves] on task and to find a compromise between different ideas.”
Natasha Turk of the American School of Doha in Qatar, who has participated in YA for the last two years, agrees with Tsai: “In YA I like the fact that we wrote the action paper together. It was one of the things that you actually do. I feel that the other MUN is just sitting there and you don’t really get to do anything.”
Her fellow YA coordinator, Soukaina Rachidi-Alaowi (also from the American Scool of Doha), added, “You can actually make a substantial difference because these action plans we make, they are going back to the schools, and they are being implemented. Change doesn’t have to always filter down, sometimes they can filter up. YA starts to change from down below and it goes up. So by changing the community, you can change the region, and even globally.” Both officers believed that the delegates were all really motivated. “What’s so difficult about MUN is when you try to be another country, you have to take yourself out of your own context and put it into the mind of someone completely different,” concluded Rachidi. “This is a committee that they can make their own. This is their footprint on MUN.”
President of the third forum, Cecile Gros from the Overseas Family School, was also chairing for the first time at YA. Gros began her first conference in her French school as a delegate. This is her third THIMUN-Singapore conference and she had been to BEIMUN twice. She hopes to go to The Hague next year. “I have already learned a lot from my experiences,” said Gros. “I am more comfortable speaking with other people now. I used to be really freaked out because I was worried that I would make a mistake. Then I realized that I was not the only one – everybody was freaked out.” She admits that Chairs need a lot of patience since most delegates here are first-timers, so they had to be led step by step.
Under the leadership of these discerning Presidents, the Youth Assembly grows sturdily. As Rachidi said, these potential delegates are not representing other people, but themselves. These are the real voices that needed to be heard throughout the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment